The Dispatch for smart phones

By A.O. ScottNew York Times News Service • Friday January 25, 2013 6:31 AM

In a charming scene in
Quartet, Reginald Paget (Tom Courtenay), a retired opera singer, lectures a room full of
hip-hop-loving teenagers about the similarities and differences between his favorite music and
theirs.

Opera, he explains, is about the expression of intense emotion through song. Rap, he surmises,
sort of does the same thing. Perhaps he might have pointed out that singing opera (and rapping, for
that matter) also demands attention to technique.

So does making a movie.
Quartet, the first feature directed by Dustin Hoffman, is a sincere but sloppy piece of
work. Hoffman dotes on his cast of first-rate British actors of a certain age:

Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Michael Gambon and Maggie Smith. The efforts of
these fine actors might have yielded greater delight if they had been given more to do.

One thing missing from
Quartet is precisely the element of strong, thrilling emotion that Reginald identifies as
the key to his art. Written by Ronald Harwood (who adapted his play), the film assembles a posse of
lovable geezers in a palatial residence for aged artistes and entangles them in the mildest
imaginable comic and dramatic situations. Under the imperious command of a floridly cranky maestro
(Gambon), the inhabitants of Beecham House for retired musicians prepare for their annual gala
benefit concert, which takes place on Verdi’s birthday.

The presence of a smattering of real-life musical performers — such as soprano Gwyneth Jones —
lends an air of trouper authenticity to the proceedings, which range from the amusingly quirky to
the slightly sad. Connolly, as Wilf Bond, wanders the corridors with a lecherous twinkle in his
eye, while Cissy Robson (Collins) is a sweet cherub slipping bit by bit from comical dottiness
toward a more serious loss of faculties.

An intimation of dark and grand feeling arrives with Jean Horton (Smith), a storied diva who was
once married to Reginald. The two of them, along with Wilf and Cissy, performed together in Verdi’s
Rigoletto back in the old days, and the idea bubbles up that the foursome might reunite to
sing that opera’s famous third-act quartet at the gala.

The film hints that unless the quartet is performed, Beecham House will run out of money. But
there is no real danger, and certainly none of the jealousy and passion that pulse through
Rigoletto. Which is all right, I suppose: A film about opera need not be operatic. You can
hum along, and no one will mind if you doze off now and then.